There are a number of camera devices on the market that produce a panoramic image, which is an image that includes a view which would require a person to pan their focus, such as by turning their head, in order to see everything presented in the image were the person looking from the same viewpoint. A conventional panoramic image can be produced by simply photographing one view, then turning the camera so that the camera's field of view now includes a view of things that could not be seen in the previous field of view, but is adjacent to the previous field of view. The resulting images can then be placed adjacent each other to provide a panoramic view. This conventional approach, however, suffers from “banding,” where the images do not align in exposure or perspective since they each have their own perspective point. More recently cameras have been designed to take in light from a larger field of view, even in a 360 degree field of view. Such images are referred to as a circular or “ring” image, which is a panoramic image produced by capturing a view in a circle or semi-circle. Conventionally this is done by using multiple cameras, each aimed in a different orientation, to capture an image that represents one sector of the complete ring image. A similar technique can be used to present spherical images, which apply the same techniques in the vertical as well as the horizontal orientations. Circular and spherical images are presented in a field of view that can be moved along the horizontal or vertical axes to see in different directions. Given that the images are produced by separate cameras, however, the boundaries of the images present breaks in the composite panoramic image, and it is preferable to present a panoramic image as a continuous image when panning the field of view around the panoramic image.
To make a panoramic image appear continuous and unbroken despite the natural breaks that are present due to the fact that different sectors of the panoramic image are captured by independent cameras, a process called “stitching” is used to merge the edges of the separate images together, resulting in the appearance of a continuous image when the field of view is panned from image to adjacent image. Stitching, while conventional, is processor intensive. This is especially true when the images being merged are images of a video stream where the stitching must be performed for every new frame of images received in the video stream. In a mobile device used to view panoramic images and panoramic video, the amount of processing resources used to stitch images in a video stream represents a significant drain on battery charge.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for viewing panoramic images and video while minimizing the impact of stitching operations on battery charge and processor resources in general.
Those skilled in the field of the present disclosure will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein. The details of well-known elements, structure, or processes that would be necessary to practice the embodiments, and that would be well known to those of skill in the art, are not necessarily shown and should be assumed to be present unless otherwise indicated.